Development of modern scientific civilization brought about that of medical technology and has accelerated the extension of man's life span and aging of population. Kim Seol-hyang(2005) asserted that Korea entered the aging society having more than 7%...
Development of modern scientific civilization brought about that of medical technology and has accelerated the extension of man's life span and aging of population. Kim Seol-hyang(2005) asserted that Korea entered the aging society having more than 7% of aging population over 65 years old in 2000.
Therefore, each country concentrates on leisure for improving national welfare, recognizes the security of qualitative leisure life as national right to enjoy pleasure, ensures supply system of various leisure styles and distributes welfare facilities for middle- and low-income classes.
In particular, considering that the elder's participation in leisure activities enhances physical, mental and social health, improves their life satisfaction and quality of their life in old age and is a medium to suggest solutions of aging problems in social changes and enhance the whole life satisfaction of our society, tracing relationship between the elder's participation in leisure activities and their life satisfaction will be important purpose of this study.
This study aims to examine the influences of participation of the elder who are residing at welfare facilities in leisure activities on their life satisfaction. Thus, it set the old people who are over 65 years old and reside at welfare facilities in Gwangju and Jeonnam regions as population and sampling of research subjects used systematic cluster sampling.
Sampling was conducted with the elder's residence welfare facilities and leisure welfare facilities in Gwangju and Jeonnam regions and for final statistical processing, total 449 responses (89.8%) except 51 omitting part of survey contents or giving unfaithful answers were used for actual analysis.
Survey methods for this study used questionnaire. But, questionnaire staffs were selected by considering lack of their understanding of questionnaire contents and of their technical knowledge on the characteristics of the old people and they read items of questionnaire to old people directly for helping their understanding of items and self-administration method or their registration on questionnaire in place of subjects were used.
Questionnaire used Leisure Satisfaction Scale developed by Raghed and Beard (1980) and used by Lee Jong-gil (1992), Lee Jong-yeong (1992) and Han Hye-won (2000) and extracted and requoted life satisfaction of questionnaires used at the Way of Policy Development of Sports for All for the Enhancement of Life Quality in the 21st century by Yoo Hee-yeong (2001).
Items of questionnaire of this study consist of total 54 inquiries including 7 items and 7 inquiries of demographical character variables, 3 items and 8 inquiries of participation in leisure activities which is independent variable, 2 items and 19 inquiries of degree of leisure satisfaction which is medium variable and 1 item and 20 inquiries of life satisfaction which is dependent variable.
In addition, as a result of calculating coefficients with Cronbach a on reliability of questionnaire used in this study, a values of items on leisure satisfaction degree and life satisfaction factors were .893 and .847 respectively and relatively stable reliability was measured.
For data analysis, data having possibility and availability of analysis except data showing unfaithful answers and no reliability were analyzed with statistical program SPSS 10.1 and AMOS 5.0. and as a result of analysis, the following results were obtained.
First, participation in leisure activities according to demographical characteristics of old people residing at welfare facilities showed that the old people participating in leisure activities showed significantly higher difference in sports and health activities at the state controlling preceding variables such as sex, age, religion, monthly pocket money, education and health condition.
Second, participation of old people residing at welfare facilities in leisure activities resulted in higher life satisfaction of old people who were satisfied with leisure satisfaction and immersion. And participation and non-participation of old people in leisure activities had a significant influence on their life satisfaction.
Third, causal model of relationship between participation of old people residing at welfare facilities in leisure activities and their life satisfaction had significant causation in all factors of causal effects of participation in leisure activities and life satisfaction.
To sum up the above conclusions, old people residing at welfare facilities participate in leisure activities, settle their inability and alienation and satisfy with their life. Accordingly, they can meet their individual environmental and social desires, overcome mental maladjustment effectively and make a new chance to adapt themselves to a new leisure by participating in leisure activities.